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Thursday, August 24, 2017

Republicans now control both chambers of Congress and the
White House, yet they have been unable, on their own, to fulfill their pledge
to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act (ACA or “Obamacare.”) The
Democratic leadership, for the time being, seems content to watch Republican
failures from the sidelines. Meanwhile, however, rank and file voters from both
parties are becoming impatient. A Morning
Consult/Politico poll taken in March found that 72 percent of Democratic
voters, 71 percent of Independents, and 75 percent of Republicans thought the
parties should work together more on healthcare reform.

Just what kind of healthcare program might draw enough
bipartisan support to pass both houses of Congress? No ACA replacement could
draw significant Democratic support unless it clearly moved closer to the goal
of universal, affordable health care, not away from it. At the same time, since
Republicans control the committees and leadership in the House and Senate, any reform
would have to start with ideas that have an acceptable conservative pedigree.

The practical question, then, is whether it is possible to
build bipartisan healthcare reform from conservative bricks. Here are three
conservative ideas that might do the job.

Sunday, August 20, 2017

As the Fed hesitates over the pace of further monetary
tightening, some critics say that standard unemployment data from the Bureau of
Labor Statistics (BLS) overstate the strength of the recovery. By focusing on
the number of employed as a percentage of the labor force, the critics say, the
BLS ignores those who have dropped out of the labor force altogether. However, a
little-watched indicator from the Richmond Fed, the Non-Employment
Index (NEI), suggests that the critics are wrong.

The labor force, which forms the denominator of the standard
unemployment rate (also known as U-3), consists of all persons who are working
or have actively looked for work in the preceding month. People who want a job,
but have stopped working, are omitted from both the numerator and denominator.
In a typical month, there are millions of such labor force dropouts, even
though they are not reflected in the standard statistics.

In an effort to take at least some of those labor-force
drop-outs into account, the BLS publishes a supplementary index known as U-5,
which includes discouraged and marginally attached workers in both its
numerator and denominator. These groups include all those who want a job and
have looked for one within the past year, but not within the past month.
Discouraged workers cite their belief that there are no jobs to be found as their
reason for not looking for work. Marginally attached workers give other
reasons, such as family responsibilities. People who say they want a job but
have gone longer than a year without looking for one are not counted in either
U-3 or U-5.

Tuesday, August 1, 2017

Republican attempts to reform the U.S.
healthcare system have fallen short, yet again. Sen. John McCain, who
cast the deciding vote against the last-ditch version of
repeal-and-replace put forward by the Senate leadership,told his colleagues,

We must now return to the
correct way of legislating and send the bill back to committee, hold
hearings, receive input from both sides of the aisle, heed the
recommendations of nation’s governors, and produce a bill that finally
delivers affordable health care for the American people. We must do the
hard work our citizens expect of us and deserve.”

More tinkering won’t do it. It is time to get serious about keeping thepromises GOP leaders made
at the very outset of the debate over healthcare reform—not just to
repeal Obamacare, but to replace it with something that provides
“coverage protections and peace of mind for all Americans—regardless of
age, income, medical conditions, or circumstances,” while ensuring “more
choices, lower costs, and greater control over your health care.” There
is no point in making a new push for healthcare reform without putting
some bold new ideas on the table.

Universal catastrophic coverage (UCC)
would make an excellent centerpiece for the next round of healthcare
reform. In fact, UCC is not even particularly new to the conservative
playbook. Respected thinkers likeMartin Feldstein, who would go on to serve as Ronald Reagan’s chief economic adviser, promoted the idea already in the 1970s. In 2004, Milton Friedman,
then a fellow at the Hoover Institution, also endorsed the concept. UCC
would make healthcare affordable, both for the federal budget and for
American families. And because it would throw no one off the healthcare
roles—not 22 million people, not 2 million, not anyone—it offers a
realistic chance of the bipartisanship thatpolls show both the Republican and Democratic rank and file want.

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